{"id":320119,"date":"2026-03-09T04:33:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T04:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/320119\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T04:33:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T04:33:15","slug":"cancer-patient-calls-for-bile-duct-cancer-drug-use-approval","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/320119\/","title":{"rendered":"Cancer patient calls for bile duct cancer drug use approval"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">There were &#8220;important questions that still need answering&#8221; about how much benefit the drug provides, and how it compares to other treatments, a NICE spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Our independent committee carefully reviewed all the available evidence,&#8221; they said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;This suggests zanidatamab is likely to help people live longer and delay their cancer getting worse.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The committee was unable to make a positive recommendation based on the evidence submitted by the company at the first meeting,&#8221; they added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Honeybone had his first tumour surgically removed and treated with chemotherapy, but a new tumour was later detected.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">After undergoing standard treatments again alongside zanidatamab, scans have shown the cancer is no longer visible.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I&#8217;m one of the lucky ones, living a normal life again, thanks to zanidatamab,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I&#8217;m back at work full-time \u2013 unlike when I was having chemo and immunotherapy, when I couldn&#8217;t work \u2013 and I was able to visit my brother in Australia over Christmas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I&#8217;m concerned that not approving this treatment for NHS patients will add to the inequalities in cholangiocarcinoma care we are already seeing \u2013 with people who are able to access clinical trials or have private healthcare benefiting from new life-extending treatments, and those that can&#8217;t go on a trial or afford to pay for insurance, not surviving.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There were &#8220;important questions that still need answering&#8221; about how much benefit the drug provides, and how it&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[134,527,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-320119","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}